Is it just me or is there not that much going on??

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

It seems to me not much going on in the forum anymore. Did the new format scare everyone off? I try to learn new stuff but I am having difficulty with this new layout. What does everyone think?? I have no control just want to keep the forum moving forward.

 

[Bentworker]

It seems to go in waves- but I think people may be more active on Facebook- which is horrible in my opinion.  A big chunk of the value behind the forum is the ability to search.  Facebook is a horrible platform for archiving.

[nailpounder]

we are in a covid slump i think most are board and the weather is hot 

[cwalker509]

I just got back in a couple of weeks ago. I jump from hobby to hobby. Perhaps others do as well or maybe covid is impacting things. No shows or swap meets in my area. I imagine true in other areas as well. Probably not unreasonable to think shows and meets help inspire interest in the members? Now with covid and so many stories on looming civil war as the US convulses with civil unrest......yeah it is kinda not fun inspiring. People trying to locate guns and ammo. Easier (and cheaper) to find an original ram air setup

[Stanglover]

I'm really starting to get the hang of the new format. There are thing I'm having trouble with, but overall, not too bad.

As for not much going on, well yes, there isn't too much that is interesting to me right now. No idea why, but it could just be cyclical. People getting project completed or maybe putting them on hold due to family or work commitments. Also for us in Canada, getting parts and supplies from the US is taking waaay too long due to the sheer volume of parcels going through customs. UPS is backed up so much they just can't keep up. Then the border is closed and that makes it very hard as well. 

For me, I waiting for a new set of Eaton rear springs to find their way over the border. I was told 3 weeks, but who knows. Good job I'm in no rush, I can wait till spring if need be.

[RocketFoot]

I don't think it's the format...I think it is Facebook and Covid mainly!  Facebook has been very active because it is easy to use and most everyone uses it already!  Problem is that it is mostly shallow discussion and topics disappear after a few days and here are a ton of trolls!  Who knows if the info you ask for is correct!  Covid is also keeping everyone from car shows and maybe making them bored with the hobby (and the forums) in general.

[tony-muscle]

For me, it is Summer. Too hot and too many other things going on. Now just preparing for all the winter projects. The garage is cooler, the car will be off the street and it would be time to work on it.

[Fabrice]

There is another category: the ones very active with one of their stangs, but not the one they usually publish progress about! I'm one of them! :D

[SVO2SCJ]

40 minutes ago, Fabrice said:

There is another category: the ones very active with one of their stangs, but not the one they usually publish progress about! I'm one of them! :D

Yeah I KIND of fall into that catagory !!   When I was doing the Boss 351 this was the only forum I used DAILY.   (2017/18) This year when while furloghed from March to Sept , I did an early Mustang......so I have been at ConcourseMustang.com or 65/66 Restoration page on FB.

Feel kind of bad for seeming to not care.....but I have never been a clubber.   NOW...I am building a 1967 Ford C850 into a ramp truck (for the early Mustang) so I am here https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/forum232/  

Mark

P.S.  My guess is if everyone turned on notifications of threads or "what you have missed" feature participation would increase again. 

[midlife]

I'm too busy checking out shorts: miniskirts are the best!

Has anyone noticed you're paying more attention to people's eyes now that almost everyone is wearing masks?

[Kilgon]

The new forum hasn't been that difficult to learn.  As mentioned above the heat of summer has forced me out of the garage too. For me it has been a combination of other things.    Being that our normal way of life has been put on hold my wife and I have been spending more time outdoors camping and enjoying the local parks.  Also, I have been working on several other projects such as a complete going over of my 2016 Ram 3500.  New brakes, complete cleaning and painting of the undercarriage and sprucing up the rest of the truck.   In between all of this I 've been helping my daughter and her husband rebuild their deck.  I've taken the car to a couple of cruise ins but haven't made it to any of the car shows with it.  Seems like a lot of doctors visits lately also.   No major health problems but they take up a lot of time.  Sometimes I feel like the car getting a complete rebuild. 

[luxstang]

18 hours ago, midlife said:

I'm too busy checking out shorts: miniskirts are the best!

Has anyone noticed you're paying more attention to people's eyes now that almost everyone is wearing masks?

I noticed that I see much fewer ugly people. 😜

[luxstang]

Regarding the topic at hand: I took a year off the forum because my life basically fell apart and I had too much personal stuff going on. 

Plus i don’t really care about my vert anymore (just missed a once in a lifetime opportunity to get rid of it) and as a consequence I no longer care much about talking about it or topics related to it. 

Other  things have taken over. My band is coming along nicely, I did a course on building guitars so I’m setting up a workshop to build guitars... and I bought a Fiat 124 Spider which is way more fun than the 72. (Sorry for the blasphemy!) 

I cannot stress enough how much this forum has been helpful over the years and how many nice people I met on here (some have even become dear friends in real life) and I really appreciate everything this forum (and its members) gave me. 

But I really don’t feel like posting anymore (or even reading for that matter). 

 

[jpaz]

Well Luxstang, sounds like your done with the Mustang stuff, bummer. But you gotta do what makes you happy, so take care and good luck with your guitar building venture! Hope it works out!

[Stanglover]

1 hour ago, jpaz said:

Well Luxstang, sounds like your done with the Mustang stuff, bummer. But you gotta do what makes you happy, so take care and good luck with your guitar building venture! Hope it works out!

Couldn't have said it better.

Good luck, health and fortune in the future Luxstang.

[Fabrice]

"just missed a once in a lifetime opportunity to get rid of it "

May be it's for the good. Sometimes life's in the way and you want/need start over fresh. (That's how I got my 429, a friend of mine also in need of a restart gave it to me.)
As I recall you have a place where you can store it nicely, at some point you may very well will return to it.

Good luck building guitars and don't worry too much! All the peeps I knew with Fiat and Alfa Romeo's fever, they all recovered! :D

[detritusmaximus]

On 9/16/2020 at 6:26 AM, luxstang said:

Regarding the topic at hand: I took a year off the forum because my life basically fell apart and I had too much personal stuff going on. 

Plus i don’t really care about my vert anymore (just missed a once in a lifetime opportunity to get rid of it) and as a consequence I no longer care much about talking about it or topics related to it. 

Other  things have taken over. My band is coming along nicely, I did a course on building guitars so I’m setting up a workshop to build guitars... and I bought a Fiat 124 Spider which is way more fun than the 72. (Sorry for the blasphemy!) 

I cannot stress enough how much this forum has been helpful over the years and how many nice people I met on here (some have even become dear friends in real life) and I really appreciate everything this forum (and its members) gave me. 

But I really don’t feel like posting anymore (or even reading for that matter). 

 

Sometimes it's like that. You lose interest or inspiration for awhile...like a phase., it may pass. I know every time I have gotten rid of something because I felt a lack of interest, I regretted it later. Although, I do know how much fun small two seaters are! Especially if the top goes down and it has a manual transmission. Some people will never know what it's like.

Maybe it will come back, if not, have fun either way!

[Mister 4x4]

I was recently promoted into my boss's job after he retired in June... and I honestly have no idea what he actually did the past 7 years besides watch TV and grouch at us.  My inbox blows up daily, and the phone's always ringing with people asking me various things, and I've found plenty of things that need improvement along with getting some of our personnel transitions finalized.  We figured I'm so busy these days because I'm more approachable and some of those folks calling me now might've been happy to see him go.  Whatever the case, I've been too busy to slip into the fourms while at work.

Then I started building my wife a super-gaming computer for her WoW habit, and got distracted from that when I bought another Jeep CJ-7 with the intent to swap its 304 V8 and TF-999 automatic into my CJ-7 [to replace the 258 I-6 & 4-sp] and have my buddy come pick it up in January to have a cheap Jeep project of his own.  Right now, I'm on a mission to clean out my garage to get my Jeep home from a storage unit so I can work on it and the new one.  Once I get my Jeep home, the 'heart transplant' will probably keep me busy until well into next spring, since I'll be warming up the 304 and taking a big swing and making my Jeep even nicer for the future going into retirement in another 7 years.

I'm going to finish up her computer this weekend come Hell or high water - it's already built and tested on full resolution (and is an absolute beast!), but I'm in the middle of a crazy paint job that's been in the works for a few months (I'll share pics when I'm done).

Then our beloved Eddie got sick and died about a month ago out of nowhere.  We have no kids, so his loss has been devastating - we still miss him every day, as they are never "just a dog" to us.  It'll take some time, but we'll get through it and find another puppy to love.

So basically, "busy, busy, busy, busy, and depressed."

[rcadd1ct]

I have been on Facebook mostly.  Trying to close my mother’s estate so I can work on my car.

 

bike wreck 7 yrs ago has started to cause more problems.  Guessing early October they will burn the nerves on the right side of my back to free me of burning nerve pain in my shoulder.  The pay have done both sides of my neck.  Nerves grow back, but if I can get past the pain I can hopefully uild enough muscle to hold me together.

 

i sure as shit wish I had not listened to the dr and not do shit while I healed.  Loss of muscle mass has haunted my ever since.

 

on it being dead I offered a free rear windo and an 8” rear.  No takers.  Used to be people that wanted that stuff to make cars period correct. Doesn’t seem to be that way anymore.

[RocketFoot]

Yeah, it's a shame...Facebook now has probably several dozen 71-73 pages that offer quick info but not much more!  They just keep thinning the forum traffic. 

With this new software, we have a referral system that could be useful and fun!  Each member gets a unique referral link to send to friends...when the friends join the forum, your referral count goes up!  The system will track who has the most referrals just for fun!  But it wouldn't hurt to grab your referral link and send it out or post it on Facebook pages (where allowed) and see if we can get the forum jumping again!!  Your links are in the TELL A FRIEND box on the top of the index page side bar!  You can also get the link and see your referral numbers here: Click your username up top>Account Settings>Referrals

[Vinnie]

On 9/19/2020 at 2:17 AM, Mister 4x4 said:

Then our beloved Eddie got sick and died about a month ago out of nowhere.  We have no kids, so his loss has been devastating - we still miss him every day, as they are never "just a dog" to us.  It'll take some time, but we'll get through it and find another puppy to love.

So basically, "busy, busy, busy, busy, and depressed."

Real sorry to read about the loss of your dog mate! 

[92GTS-R]

I am still not enjoying the new style forum as much as the old one and is clear to see my post count has dropped off since.

I know we have been told why things had to change but I'm an old dog and just am not finding it as easy as it used to be.

[72HCODE]

this topic is kind of old but i just saw it on my feed and i can give my opinion on what is going on.

 

Forums in general have been on a downward trend for at least the last 15 years or more.

people moved on to Facebook now and are using it like a forum. in general more people want everything in one spot rather then going to different websites.

the way people now move around the internet has changed. bookmark management in browsers is now secondary and the interface is horrible compared to the old days.

it seems people have reverted back to the old days of portal pages. the auto fill in and search functions have replaced bookmarks in a way and it keeps everyone on a single platform for information.

flame wars and censorship, this ran tons of people off the forums, this is handled in various ways on facebook by admins or facebook itself but people seem to feel free on facebook, but they also seem to self check themselves as the posts are so public. i know people forget that on forums you have the same ignore list controls but somehow they felt everything is more complex on forums.

another angle is people really just got sick of the forums format and moved on and the same is happening with facebook people are moving to discord servers with all the sub communities.

facebook and discord tend to self moderate while forums have always been a messy human process and people get offended very easily.

facebook and discord usually have much better controls over the information you post as well.

for example if you decided to remove yourself from a forum you have to tediously remove one post at time or create a script that does it for you many times posts are locked for different reasons and you cannot remove a post that may hold sensitive information then you have to deal with moderation staff that usually is unwilling to help you thus the user is angry because of the lost of control over personal information. with facebook for example everything you post is yours to control and delete, however facebook does keep everything you ever posted as data that could have a nefarious future.

more reasons galore but the time of Forums ended long ago and people just moved on to whatever was the next big thing and they will move on after that as well. years ago it was myspace then it was facebook and now its tiktok or patreon. everyone is leaving youtube at the moment for a bunch of reasons.

the aging digital popuation has its effect;

the older generation was used to reading things while the younger generation wants to watch things and they want it faster and faster.

so on a forum somebody would of asked how do you change a power steering pump that resulted in a long thread with photos and a back and forth of clarification followed by differing opinions on the subject and somebody getting offended at some point for something. verse somebody asks the same on facebook or youtube and a video is posted showing the procedure and tools required and any noise is left in the comments section which can be ignored.

forums support embed video but the user is usually older and less tech savvy so the younger crowd migrates onto the current hot platform for information.

it is never any one thing that kills something it is death by a 1000s cuts.

eBay pretty much committed suicide the last 5 years as example so slowly everyone has been leaving it resulting in massive stagnation. again death by a 1000 cuts. they changed the interface people hate it, now you have to pay taxes on it, the sellers got screwed with rule changes, the buyers got screwed with rule changes, shipping is handled differently pissing people off, and just on and on so now people are on craigslist or Facebook marketplace. amazon and Esty have taken a ton of business away from eBay as well.

 

in general ALL forums have seen traffic go down to almost zero so just know it isn't just this forum.

 

 

 

[RocketFoot]

1 hour ago, 72HCODE said:

this topic is kind of old but i just saw it on my feed and i can give my opinion on what is going on.

 

Forums in general have been on a downward trend for at least the last 15 years or more.

people moved on to Facebook now and are using it like a forum. in general more people want everything in one spot rather then going to different websites.

the way people now move around the internet has changed. bookmark management in browsers is now secondary and the interface is horrible compared to the old days.

it seems people have reverted back to the old days of portal pages. the auto fill in and search functions have replaced bookmarks in a way and it keeps everyone on a single platform for information.

flame wars and censorship, this ran tons of people off the forums, this is handled in various ways on facebook by admins or facebook itself but people seem to feel free on facebook, but they also seem to self check themselves as the posts are so public. i know people forget that on forums you have the same ignore list controls but somehow they felt everything is more complex on forums.

another angle is people really just got sick of the forums format and moved on and the same is happening with facebook people are moving to discord servers with all the sub communities.

facebook and discord tend to self moderate while forums have always been a messy human process and people get offended very easily.

facebook and discord usually have much better controls over the information you post as well.

for example if you decided to remove yourself from a forum you have to tediously remove one post at time or create a script that does it for you many times posts are locked for different reasons and you cannot remove a post that may hold sensitive information then you have to deal with moderation staff that usually is unwilling to help you thus the user is angry because of the lost of control over personal information. with facebook for example everything you post is yours to control and delete, however facebook does keep everything you ever posted as data that could have a nefarious future.

more reasons galore but the time of Forums ended long ago and people just moved on to whatever was the next big thing and they will move on after that as well. years ago it was myspace then it was facebook and now its tiktok or patreon. everyone is leaving youtube at the moment for a bunch of reasons.

the aging digital popuation has its effect;

the older generation was used to reading things while the younger generation wants to watch things and they want it faster and faster.

so on a forum somebody would of asked how do you change a power steering pump that resulted in a long thread with photos and a back and forth of clarification followed by differing opinions on the subject and somebody getting offended at some point for something. verse somebody asks the same on facebook or youtube and a video is posted showing the procedure and tools required and any noise is left in the comments section which can be ignored.

forums support embed video but the user is usually older and less tech savvy so the younger crowd migrates onto the current hot platform for information.

it is never any one thing that kills something it is death by a 1000s cuts.

eBay pretty much committed suicide the last 5 years as example so slowly everyone has been leaving it resulting in massive stagnation. again death by a 1000 cuts. they changed the interface people hate it, now you have to pay taxes on it, the sellers got screwed with rule changes, the buyers got screwed with rule changes, shipping is handled differently pissing people off, and just on and on so now people are on craigslist or Facebook marketplace. amazon and Esty have taken a ton of business away from eBay as well.

 

in general ALL forums have seen traffic go down to almost zero so just know it isn't just this forum.

 

 

 

This is pretty much true!  Social Media is slowly killing forums!  I was hoping the move to this IPS4 software would help us out!  IPS is leading the way with modern forum software...plus I am able to add new modules to help get people interested in posting, like the Garage, Community Map, Tutorials, Blogs and Clubs!  There is something for everyone no matter if they are a novice or experienced forum user!  There are other applications I can add such as Photo Competitions and Trivia contests, but they cost more money and probably won't get used enough to justify the cost just yet!  We have plenty here for everyone to do...I just wish everyone would make at least 1 new post or reply every time the visit to help get us back up to speed!  Traffic is the one thing that can keep a forum alive!  Maybe I will send out a bulk email inviting members back to see the new forum and all that we have to keep them informed and entertained!

[Fabrice]

@RocketFoot

Being one of those producing content, aside the raw string view that I've already requested, I have another one! :)  I'd like very much to have the code handling the IMG embeds (or the CSS) to be fixed or a way to override it by being able to define embed sizes.
The current scales the wrong way, for instance, a pict of 2048x1024 (width > height) will get displayed full width in the parent element container as expected, but a 1024x2048 (height > width),  would then be displayed smaller than the container width and the ratio seems to be dictated by some wrong calc or css rule. Which creates a visual mess...

Oh and a way to see and copy paste the link of an image in lib during edits would be handy too as the soft is really buggy when it comes to move images around in text.

Thx :)

[RocketFoot]

1 hour ago, Fabrice said:

@RocketFoot

Being one of those producing content, aside the raw string view that I've already requested, I have another one! :)  I'd like very much to have the code handling the IMG embeds (or the CSS) to be fixed or a way to override it by being able to define embed sizes.
The current scales the wrong way, for instance, a pict of 2048x1024 (width > height) will get displayed full width in the parent element container as expected, but a 1024x2048 (height > width),  would then be displayed smaller than the container width and the ratio seems to be dictated by some wrong calc or css rule. Which creates a visual mess...

Oh and a way to see and copy paste the link of an image in lib during edits would be handy too as the soft is really buggy when it comes to move images around in text.

Thx :)

You can override displayed image sizes by adding the image into the post (plus symbol on the lower left corner of uploaded image) and then double click on the bigger image in the post.  You will be presented with a pop up for image formatting! 

Still working on the raw HTML button...IPS feels that it is a security risk to allow this in a forum.